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Boston Logan International Airport is the principal gateway to New England, a Class B hub airport standing on reclaimed land beside Boston Harbor in East Boston and Winthrop, Massachusetts. For the simulator pilot it offers a demanding six-runway complex, full Boston Approach and Tower services, and a skyline-and-harbour approach that makes it one of the more visually striking major US airports to fly into. It has been in continuous operation since 1923 and today serves as a hub for Delta Air Lines and a focus city for JetBlue.
Logan is a large hub commercial airport serving Boston, Massachusetts, and the wider New England region, owned and operated by the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport). It sits on a compact, reclaimed harbourside site and handles a dense mix of domestic, transatlantic and regional traffic through four passenger terminals. For a simulator pilot it is notable for its unusual six-runway layout crossing at various angles, its Class B airspace with tightly managed arrival and departure corridors, and its dramatic setting on Boston Harbor within sight of the downtown skyline.
Logan lies mostly in East Boston with part of the airfield in Winthrop, Massachusetts, on land reclaimed from Boston Harbor, roughly three miles from downtown Boston. The airport sits within Class B controlled airspace, with arrivals and departures handled by Boston Approach/Departure across North, West and South sectors before handoff to the Boston Tower positions covering the west and east sides of the field.
Logan has six physical runways. The main parallel pair, 15R/33L, is the longest at 9,197 ft on the 15R end and 10,078 ft on the 33L end, hard-surfaced, lit and equipped with ILS. Its shorter parallel partner, 15L/33R, runs 2,551 ft and 2,706 ft respectively, hard-surfaced and lit but without ILS. The other parallel pair, 04R/22L, is 8,836 ft and 9,020 ft, hard-surfaced, lit and ILS-equipped, while the shorter parallel runway 04L/22R is 7,857 ft and 7,178 ft, hard-surfaced and lit only. The crosswind runway 09/27 is 6,982 ft on the 09 end and 7,136 ft on the 27 end, hard-surfaced and lit, with ILS available on runway 27. The shortest runway, 14/32, is 4,993 ft in each direction, hard-surfaced and lit but without ILS.
Boston Approach is split into three sectors: North Approach on 118.25 MHz, West Approach on 120.6 MHz and South Approach on 127.2 MHz. Boston Departure operates on 133 MHz. Boston Tower is split between West Tower on 128.8 MHz and East Tower on 132.225 MHz, with Boston Ground on 121.75 MHz and a second ground frequency on 121.9 MHz. Clearance Delivery is on 121.65 MHz, ATIS broadcasts on 135 MHz, and Gate control is on 134.05 MHz. A UNICOM frequency of 122.95 MHz is also listed. Multiple runways are equipped with ILS as noted above, supporting instrument approaches to the main precision runways.
As a Class B, fully ATC-controlled major hub, Logan does not operate VFR circuit patterns in the manner of a general aviation field; all arriving and departing traffic is sequenced by Boston Approach, Departure and Tower across the North, West and South sectors and the East/West tower positions before being fed onto one of the six runways.
The airfield is unmistakable from the air, occupying reclaimed land jutting into Boston Harbor immediately northeast of downtown Boston, whose skyline is visible just a few miles to the southwest. The surrounding harbour waters, the Blue Line rapid transit corridor to the airport, and the built-up shoreline of East Boston and Winthrop all serve as useful visual references when approaching the field.
Logan opened on September 8, 1923 as Boston Airport at Jeffries Point, initially used by the Massachusetts Air National Guard and the US Army Air Corps. Colonial Air Transport began the first scheduled commercial flights, linking Boston and New York, in 1927. On January 1, 1936 the airport's weather station became the official point of record for Boston's National Weather Service observations. During the 1940s and 1950s the airport expanded by adding around 1,800 acres of landfill taken from Governors, Noddle's and Apple Islands in the harbour, while terminal facilities grew with a central terminal in 1949, later replaced by Terminals C and B in 1967 and 1974. In 1943 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts renamed the field after Major General Edward Lawrence Logan, a Spanish-American War officer from South Boston, and a statue of Logan was dedicated at the airport in 1956. In 1952 Logan became the first US airport with a rapid transit connection, via the Blue Line's Airport station. The airport became a transatlantic gateway after the Second World War, with American Overseas Airlines, Pan Am, BOAC and Air France all launching services to Europe, and BOAC later introducing the de Havilland Comet jetliner on direct London Heathrow flights. The airport received its full international title, General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport, by act of the state legislature on April 29, 1954.
Logan today is the largest airport in Massachusetts and New England by passenger and cargo volume, and the busiest in the northeastern United States outside the New York area, handling over 43 million passengers in 2024. It serves as a hub for Delta Air Lines, a focus city for JetBlue, and an operating base for Cape Air, with American Airlines and United Airlines also operating significant transcontinental services. The airport has four passenger terminals, A, B, C and E, with Terminal E handling most international arrivals for customs processing.
